The real estate investment trust Macerich‘s plan to turn around the troubled Shops at Atlas Place mall in Queens will hinge on a roster of retail tenants hawking low-cost goods.

That’s a significant turnaround for the shopping center at 8000 Cooper Avenue, which pleased the local Glendale population with a spiffy design and Regal Cinemas theater when it opened in 2006, but did not woo neighborhood shoppers to its stores. Macerich, which owns 80 malls across the country, bought the 25-acre shopping center out of bankruptcy for $54 million in early 2011.
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Demand for properties in the borough is at an all-time high, and many neighborhoods in Brooklyn are rivaling some Manhattan neighborhoods in terms of value and desirability. Today, many young people moving to New York City are choosing Brooklyn over Manhattan, and their motivation is not simply based on affordability. For teenagers and those in their 20s who live in Manhattan, partying in their own borough is passé. They want to go to Brooklyn, which is now widely considered the hipper of the two boroughs.
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Times of change and uncertainty are always worrisome for investors—fear takes hold, spending is called into question and valuations become unpredictable.

Mix an election season with the impending threat of a potentially devastating fiscal cliff, then throw in a destructive, rogue tropical storm named Sandy, and you’ve created an environment that is not conducive to a stellar business quarter for the commercial market.

However, thanks to tax law-motivated sales and retail—as well as a handful of big end-of-year leasing deals—the fourth quarter ended on a relatively positive note, despite a slowdown in leasing activity.
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Brooklyn malls don’t usually come to mind as the city’s highest-grossing commercial real estate. But this year was different, with 5100 Kings Plaza, a k a the Kings Plaza Mall, taking the top spot among citywide sales when it sold for $751 million earlier this month.

It wasn’t just the biggest sale of the year—it was the biggest outright, single-trade sale in Brooklyn ever, according to data provided by Massey Knakal Realty Services.
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